Rahul Gandhi forms panel for tickets, Digvijaya Singh invited

ET Bureau|

Nov 02, 2018, 08.19 AM IST

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The Congress circles are agog with talks of stormy exchanges during a meeting attended by Rahul Gandhi, Digvijaya Singh and Jyotiraditya Scindia.

NEW DELHI: A serious tussle over ticket distribution for the Madhya Pradesh assembly election prompted Congress president Rahul Gandhi to form a panel of veteran leaders Ahmed Patel, Ashok Gehlot and M Veerappa Moily in an attempt to smooth the process of candidate selection, along with calling the so far sidelined former two-term state chief minister Digvijaya Singh as a special invitee to a meeting of the party’s central election committee.

The Congress circles are agog with talks of stormy exchanges during a Wednesday night meeting attended by Rahul Gandhi, Digvijaya Singh and Jyotiraditya Scindia to try and settle differenes over selection of candidates. However, Singh tweeted on Thursday denying denying any such indoor exchanges.

The committee was set to begin the process of finalising the party’s candidates. Singh had ceased to be a member of the panel when Gandhi recently dropped him from the new CWC. Although the Congress leadership had kept him at a distance from the election campaign, the party faced embarrassment when a video clip recently went public showing Singh telling his supporters that he would not address election campaign meetings as that could cost the party votes.

It is being wrongly reported in press that I and Jyotiraditya Scindhia ji had any arguement and Rahul ji had to int… https://t.co/fY9KwNv8Fd

According to those in the know, Gandhi formed the panel of Patel, Gehlot and Moily after a series of meetings of the party’s screening committee, comprising its chairman Madhusudan Mistry and party general secretary Deepak Babaria, failed to find an amicable solution for candidate selection.

Supporters of Singh have sought a fair representation of candidates from the party, sources. Former party president Sonia Gandhi invited Singh to the meeting, they said.